From the Office of the Bishop

Everything listed under: God

Dear Friends in Christ, A few months ago, we were gathered to celebrate Christmas. In that Season, the prayer of the Church was one of profound thanks that God, who wonderfully created the dignity of human nature in the beginning, has even more wonderfully restored that dignity in the Incarnation of God in Jesus Christ. We were not celebrating some theological abstraction, a mere change of metaphysical status.

Dear Friends in Christ, Once again it is my duty and privilege to invite you to the observance of a holy Lent. As we continue to make our on-going journey from glory to glory together, this Season now comes as an important invitation to a renewed intentionality about nurturing and deepening our spiritual life. One aid to that work that I commend to you is the current Bishop’s Book (which also happens to be the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Lent Book) I Am With You, by Kathryn Greene-McCreight.

Dear Friends in Christ, Grace and peace to you, as once again we come to Christmas. Once again, we are invited to the stable and to the manger. We, who are moved by the plight of Syrian refugees, troubled by the rising tide of violence in our homeland, concerned about the health of our planet or find this a time of struggle or loss, see that God has already reached out to us, as we reach out to God for help.

Dear Friends in Christ, Grace and peace to you, and blessings as we enter the Season of Advent. I hope that your Thanksgiving is joyous, and both a happy reminder of God's providence and an encouragement to have effective compassion for those in need. Advent now invites us to prepare to receive Christ, by choosing the way of His Light, in a world that also contains darkness.

Dear Friends in Christ, Grace and peace to you, as we enter a new Season together. Pentecost comes again, and with it a renewed emphasis on the reality that we have been given power to live, ever more completely, into that fullness of life that Easter taught us about. By the power of the Holy Spirit, we are now able to participate more fully in the life of God, and grow in the beauty of holiness.

Dear Friends in Christ: We have recently prayed that God might help us to “enter with joy upon the contemplation of those mighty acts whereby you have given us life and immortality;” and so we entered Holy Week. Through the Church’s traditional liturgies, we are helped to enter more fully into the Paschal Mystery, and to embrace the reality that Christ is risen. We again come to know how, in the power of the Resurrection, God is at work in our lives and in our world to restore His image in us, a...